James Bovard: Gun Control Has Already Led to Many Abuses

Click here to help Campaign for Liberty fight the gun grabbers by joining the Patriot Club and being automatically enrolled in our AR-15 gun giveaway.

President Trump declared last week that the law enforcement should “take the guns first, go through due process second.” But the history of federal firearms enforcement shows that due process is often a mirage when federal bureaucrats drop their hammer. Before enacting sweeping new gun prohibitions, we should remember the collateral damage and constitutional absurdities from previous federal crackdowns.

Sweeping new firearms prohibitions would enable the feds to selectively target unpopular offenders. The biggest debacle resulting from prior such targeting occurred 25 years ago last week outside of Waco, Texas. The federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agency saw the Branch Davidians — a fringe Protestant group that quickly became maligned as a cult — as the perfect patsies for a high-profile raid that would make G-men look like heroes.

Waco illustrates how, if the feds decide to vilify someone, their prior efforts to comply with the law will vanish from the record. In July 1992, ATF agent Davy Aguilera visited the Branch Davidians’ gun dealer, Henry McMahon, who suggested the Davidians were illegally converting semiautomatic firearms to full automatic firing capacity, a federal felony. When Davidian leader David Koresh was told that allegation, he invited Aguilera to visit the Davidians’ residence and carry out an on-the-spot inspection. Aguilera refused the invitation and his subsequent affidavit application to search the Davidians’ residence “contained an incredible number of false statements,” according to a 1996 congressional report.

Gun owners who are targeted will find it almost impossible to learn about federal conniving. ATF claimed a surprise attack was necessary because Koresh almost never came out of his home. Six years later, thanks to FOIA hounding by lawyer David Hardy, the ATF finally disclosed a memo revealing that, nine days before the raid, two undercover ATF agents (recognized as such by Koresh) knocked on the door of the Davidian residenceand invited Koresh to go shooting. Koresh, two other Davidians, and the two agents had a fine time shootingAR-15s and Sig-Sauer semiautomatic pistols. But easily arresting Koresh that day would have preempted the biggest raid in ATF history.

The case of Harold Staples vs. U.S. involved an AR-15 that the ATF had tampered with after seizing to convert it into an illegal automatic weapon. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the 7-2 court majority rebuke of the Clinton administration, declared, "The government's position, is precisely that 'guns in general' are dangerous items. (For) the Government ... the proposition that a defendant's knowledge that the item he possessed 'was a gun' is sufficient for a conviction." If the White House is occupied by someone who derides the Second Amendment, scores of millions of gun owners could be victimized by similar or worse toxic legal nonsense.

“Show us the gun and we’ll find a crime” crackdowns work out great for bureaucrats but ravage citizens and the Constitution. There are already sufficient laws on the books to disarm people who pose stark public threats, such as alleged Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz. Sweeping gun bans multiply the number of criminals while doing little or nothing to reduce violence.